1. The Murray Darling Basin Plan
An Overview .

2. The Murray Darling Basin – Alan Brink

3. The Murray Darling Basin – Alan Brink
Australia ahead of the rest with water saving. California introduced restrictions for the first time in 2015 when the water available hit 5% of the historical average after a 4 year severe drought. These restrictions affect urban users despite the fact that 80% of water there is used to grow crops.
94% of rainfall evaporates, 2% drains into the ground and 4% ends up as runoff
Basin generates 39% of the national income derived from agricultural production
Produces 53% of Australian cereals grown for grain, 95% of oranges and 54% of apples
Supports 28% of the nation’s cattle herd, 45% of sheep and 62% of pigs
The MDB also includes over 30,000 wetlands – some of which are listed internationally for their importance to migratory birds from within the Basin, other parts of Australia and overseas.

4. The Politics of water in the Murray Darling Basin
Of all the world’s natural resources, water always attracts the most emotion. Disagreements and fights have been not unusual in the development of water management in NSW and no doubt other parts of Australia. Upstream versus downstream.
Even internationally, it has been suggested that a future SE Asian war could start over water i.e. the damming of the Mekong River in China.
The MDBP – Why???
Environmental and Socio-Economic Sustainability.
Initial Plan from Howard Govt. years.
Then Kev 07 including Gillard pushed it further.
The latter had a better chance of success being a Labour govt. and therefore more sympathetic to environmental issues.
The Lib/Nat Parties have much of their support with industry and farmers so changes in government resulted in changes to the Plan.
In NSW the MDB has two Ministers overseeing – State and Federal.

5. The Murray Darling Basin plan
Set up under Gillard in Some argue it does not go far enough to save the river’s health and others say it goes too far and wrecks the livelihoods of those who depend on it for irrigation. It represents one third of all our agricultural production. It grew out of the millennium drought from 2002 to 2007.
The idea was to return over allocation of water licences and return the water to the environment. The 2012 plan was supposed to do just that by taking the water savings from farmers who were using water conserving techniques.
South Australia downstream says it is suffering and so are the irrigators downstream. They are asking for an extra 450 GGL which Joyce says cannot be done. The plan is to return 2750 gigalitres to the environment and perhaps bump it up to Labour backs the plan. NSW has typically “sold” more water than there was in the system
The MDBA is currently looking at the socio economic effects of the plan.

6. the Murray Darling Basin
At the Federal level, Barnaby Joyce was currently using his considerable political clout to undo much of the Plan’s environmental concepts by stopping the water buybacks from farmers.
His reason was to ensure the economic sustainability of major rural industries such as cotton and rice.
So we have two versions of the definition of “sustainable” – one refers to people, the other to the environment.
Groundwater reductions have been made already through “ex gratia” payments to those landholders willing to sell their allocations to the government but these were never part of the MDBP.

7. the Murray Darling Basin
As a recent example of political shuffling, Broken Hill in NSW is to get an alternate water supply via a pipe from the Murray River at Wentworth. Niall Blair the NSW Water Minister claims that modifications to The Menindee Lakes system on the Darling River will enable greater flows from the Darling to the Murray to offset these extractions. Sounds good? Not if you are an irrigator downstream of Wentworth. Water for towns takes the highest priority over High Security water for permanent plantings. Those irrigators are now on the second tier of priorities and not very happy. Could there be more votes in Broken Hill than downstream irrigators?
Offsetting this of course is the great need for water in Broken Hill during drought. In the most recent major drought several years ago, Menindee Lakes almost dried out resulting in the distinct possibility of Broken Hill being evacuated.
From an international perspective, these MDBP issues are common as well. In France and the USA they also have sustainability debates, reductions in water supply to farmers and the common “who pays” question.

8. The Murray Darling Basin – water licenses and water trading
Water has been traded ever since 1983 and typically you had to buy the land to get the water rights to which it was entitled. Now you can buy the water on its own in NSW, Victoria and South Australia. Trading is between Nyah and Goolwa.
Irrigators have a permanent allocation in Victoria and South Australia but if there is any left over second licence kick in for left overs decided on a yearly basis
Water is bought and sold on a website. Last year it went up to $200 a megalitre with dairy, livestock and orchards the biggest users. I Ml is roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
The cost of water determines the crop grown e.g. maize or lucerne.
In drought times selling water kept some farms going over four years. It also encouraged farmers to be more water efficient.
Buying and selling helps even things out.

9. Current State of “Play” (August 2018)
Queensland cotton farmer charged with $20million fraud under MDBP
Barnaby Joyce pushing for release of environmental water to alleviate drought affected farms in NW NSW – this would breach the Federal Water Act put in place partly so that politicians were not in charge of environmental water.

10. “Thank God Barnaby is no longer in charge of anything”
“Thank God Barnaby is no longer in charge of anything”. SA Royal Commission appears to have “fizzled out” NSW Gov’t approved Barwon/Darling Water Sharing Plan – not within MDBP!!! Four Corners Program – two cotton growers are being prosecuted.

11. And Finally!
In 2017, scientists say that there has been NO change to the environment within the Murray Darling Basin Plan Area.
Good? Bad?
I’m just glad that I have retired!!!